


Elbow Grease

by derwentian



Category: Bastion (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Introspection, Quiet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7760929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derwentian/pseuds/derwentian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Busywork often leads to emotional introspection and fatigue. Teamwork helps with both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elbow Grease

The Shrine is in dire need of cleaning. It's to be expected; things get dusty from time to time. No one but Zulf really uses the place much—the Kid is too busy most days, Zia devotes most of her time to maintaining the Bastion, and Rucks has his own mess of issues with the gods—so the responsibility of keeping it in working order falls to him by default. The floor needs to be swept, the windows need to be washed, the idols need to be dusted, and so on. It's normally not much of a task; if he tidies up a little before his daily prayers, it's less than half an hour of work every day. But he doesn't always have the energy (physically or mentally) to clean up every single day, and he isn’t entirely sure the place was locked up properly before yesterday’s storm.

Zulf spends the entire walk from his tent to the shrine dreading what kind of mess he might find within. The squirt is trailing just behind him, trilling and bumping into his shoulder excitedly every so often. It's probably just chipper as always, but he'd like to think it's happy to see him. The squirt can’t exactly tell him one way or the other, so he can believe what he likes. He can see the dust in the air as soon as he opens the door to the Shrine. It's almost unrealistically grimy inside; it couldn't have been more than a week or two since he last cleaned in here, could it? Did someone just come in here and throw dirt around? Maybe the door was open during that storm.

Oh well. Whatever the reason for all this filth, it has to be cleaned up. It just might take a lot longer than he expected. Someone left a little pile of carefully folded damp rags by the door for him to use—was it Zia? He could have sworn she mentioned something about cleaning supplies earlier. It must have been her. The Kid wouldn't think to do something like that, and Rucks would probably rather be caught dead than voluntarily step foot in the Shrine. Either way, this makes Zulf's job just a little bit easier. He picks up the topmost rag and unfolds it in one swift motion, inspecting its cleanliness. Ironic, given the fact that his goal is to make it filthy. As he contemplates this conundrum, the squirt wanders over to the rag pile and picks one up, unfolding it in a clumsy imitation of Zulf's gesture. It gazes up at him expectantly, like it's waiting for his next move. An idea is beginning to form in Zulf's mind. "Do you want to help, friend? Here, watch me." He walks to the nearest window and rubs the glass with his rag, maintaining eye contact with the squirt the whole time. "This is how you clean the windows. Do you want to give it a try?"

It just stares at him for a while. Just as he's starting to feel more than a bit foolish, the squirt floats up to the window with its own rag and pushes it against the glass. It pauses, watches Zulf for a few more seconds, and starts to slide its rag back and forth across the glass in a slow, delicate manner. Zulf smiles. "There you go, that's it. Good job!" The squirt chirps happily at his praise. "Now you just keep doing that until the either the window is clean or the rag is too dirty. If the rag gets too dirty, you put it over here—" He drops his rag on the floor. "and go get a new one. Does that make sense?" The squirt chirps again, squinting at the windowpane with the closest thing to a glare of determination that it can muster with nothing but eyes at its disposal.

Maybe this won't be as much work as Zulf thought it would. Assuming the squirt can handle the windows (which might be a bit of a stretch, but he can dream), that just leaves the floor and the idols for him to clean himself. He'll have to keep an eye on the squirt's progress, though. It might not know what to do once it's done with that one window. Better not get too invested in anything else just yet. He settles for sorting through the rags while the squirt rubs away at the window, glancing its way every so often. It seems to be doing alright at cleaning that window, if a lot slower than he would do it himself. Oh well. Any help at all is good help.

He's sorted the rags twice by size, once by dampness, and three times by color when the squirt floats over and bumps against his shoulder, eyes squinted with pride. "What is it, friend? Is the window finished?" The squirt chirps happily and grabs Zulf's finger with its own incredibly tiny hands, very gently tugging him towards the window. Looks like it wants to show him its handiwork. Zulf follows its lead, appraising the window's state of affairs. It's not a perfect cleaning job by any means, but the glass is much cleaner than before. That's one less thing he has to do himself.

The squirt looks from him to the window and back expectantly, and he grins. "Excellent work! This is much cleaner than it was before. You've done a very good job, friend. Don't tell anyone, but I think the Kid could learn a thing or two from you." The squirt twirls in place, cooing happily at his praise. "So, do you think you're up to doing some more of the windows? You would be doing me a great service by helping out." It blinks and floats off to the rag pile, making odd little trilling noises as it goes. That settles the issue of window cleaning, then.

Zulf watches the squirt pick up a rag and make its way to another window before fetching the idols from their niches in the far wall of the Shrine. The Kid sure devoted a lot of time and fragments to repairing all of the idols for someone who hardly ever visits them. Pyth was an obvious enough choice from him. Everyone knows—knew—Pyth. Hense and Micia, too. He hadn't expected the Kid to bring them all back, though. A slightly bitter part of him didn't think Caelondians even remembered the whole Pantheon—or at least not the gods that were difficult to market. Who would want a stuffed doll of an old man? Bulls and horses are easier to sell. Zulf huffs quietly and decides to put the topic away for the time being. No need to get riled up about it now.

The idols are cleaner than the windows, to a notable degree. Most of them just need a good dusting. It's probably just because their niches in the wall keep most of the dirt elsewhere, but he'd like to think there's some amount of divinity to it. It's a bit silly, and he wouldn't mention it to anyone, but the thought is nice, at least. It reminds him of the sorts of things the missionary—his father, really—used to say when he was younger. The memory stings a bit, but no more than anything else does lately. There are a lot more memories to sulk over now. He should be fine as long as he doesn't dwell on it.

A small burst of noise echoes through the Shrine from outside. Laughter, and various bird noises. Zia must be playing with the pecker. Everyone else it could be is either away for the day or too old and curmudgeonly to fit the bill. From the sound of things, they're both enjoying themselves. Zulf shakes himself, tries to clear his head. Now isn't the time for all these upsetting trains of thought. It's a beautiful day out, everyone (excluding himself, apparently) is in a good mood, and there's honest work to be done. This apparently inescapable need of his to sit around and wallow in negative emotions can wait, at least for a little while. If he's lucky, getting something done around here might even prevent the whole thing. That would be a nice change of pace. It hasn't happened lately, but he can dream, can't he?

The idols aren't very dusty, but they're deceptively difficult to clean. Too many little nooks and crannies. Yudrig and Hense's idols are especially unwieldy, what with all the intricately detailed carvings. Hense's idol basically has to be wiped down petal by petal—not that Zulf minds. There's something almost relaxing to it, actually. The repetitiveness of the motion is somewhat calming. Yudrig's idol isn't quite as difficult, but the grooves in the mane are surprisingly tough to clean out fully. The Kid's method of dusting—spitting on the offending object and wiping it clean with his shirt—comes to mind, and Zulf silently chastises himself for even thinking of the idea. Aside from the act itself being crass and unsanitary, he would rather traverse the Wild all over again than spit on a religious object. Cleaning these idols isn't that much of an ordeal, anyway.

Just as Zulf is finishing up Hense and Yudrig's idols, a distinctly Zia-shaped figure steps into the Shrine's entryway, casting a vaguely less Zia-shaped shadow over Zulf and his arrangement of idols on the floor. He squints up at her for a moment while she gazes around the room, seemingly taking in the state of things. "Wow. What happened in here? It looks like someone set off a cannon or something." Zulf huffs, just a little. "I'm aware of that, thank you. My theory is that no one bothered to close the door before that storm." He tries to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but judging by the face Zia makes, a bit of it came through regardless. "Yeah... Sorry about that."

Zulf shakes his head, picks up Jevel's idol and props it up in his lap. "Don't worry about it. I didn't ask. Besides, it's in the past, and I'm catching up now." Suddenly, Zia notices the squirt. It chirps a cheerful greeting from its station at one of the windows, then resumes its task of very gently and carefully scrubbing the glass. Zia doesn't say anything for a while. Her expression is difficult to read, so Zulf simply doesn't bother and focuses on wiping down Jevel's idol. This one is much easier to clean, all flat surfaces and smooth curves. "...You got the squirt to clean for you." Zia's voice is almost stunned when she speaks again. "I did. It's a very fast learner. Picks things up by example." The squirt, sensing an opportunity to receive attention, disposes of its rag and zips over to Zia, nudging her towards the windows it already cleaned with a series of excited chirps and coos. "I think it wants to show you its handiwork. It's been doing a very good job, actually." Zia gives in and lets herself be pushed to one of the windows, eyeing the glass critically. "Hmm. I've got to say, I'm impressed, little buddy! You did a great job here! And..." She leans down to the squirt's level and lowers her voice, "Don't tell him I said so, but I think you're better at cleaning than the Kid." Zulf snorts. "I said the same thing earlier. I'm glad to see we're on the same page with this."

Having received its desired amount of attention, the squirt bumps against Zia's cheek affectionately and floats away to the window it was cleaning. Zia turns her attention back to Zulf, who subsequently turns his attention back to the idol in his lap. He's nearly finished with it, just a few more nooks on the top left to wipe down. No one says anything for a little while, and the Shrine is silent aside from the squirt cooing quietly every so often as it moves from window to window. Zia is probably doing something, but Zulf isn't going to risk looking up to see what.

Once he's finished cleaning Jevel's idol, he sets it aside and turns to the remaining idols just in time to see Zia sit down on the floor next to him with a smile. "It wouldn't really be fair of me if I left you to finish all this by yourself, would it?" And just like that, she picks up Acobi's idol and a rag and gets to work, humming a tune as she goes. Zulf reaches for an idol of his own. Maybe things are looking up after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this a long time ago and never got around to posting it, but it holds up pretty well. YMMV on whether squirts could actually clean windows. Feedback is encouraged and appreciated!


End file.
